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Last Night A Doctor Saved My Nut

Last night I nearly lost a dear friend of mine. Now this is the sort of
story most men, myself included, would understandably want keep to
themselves. Although this deviates from my normal content, I feel a duty
to tell all in this age of transparency because while I was in the
middle of the ordeal, I turned to Google for help and didn’t find the
information I needed. I write this in the hopes it helps some
unfortunate guy in the future.

The
story begins late last night around 1:15 AM as I turned in to bed for
the night. Tossing and turning, I started to feel a pain in my lower
abdomen and right testicle. I could feel that my right testicle was
swollen and a bit harder than one would expect. It felt like an
impossibly bad case of blue
balls.
The worst case imaginable.

Since I hate dealing with hospitals and such, I tried to sleep it off
telling myself it would be fine in the morning, as if somehow the
Nut-helper Fairy would come in the middle of the night and make it all
better.

Suffice it to say, when your genital region is in pain, it’s pretty damn
difficult to get a good night’s sleep. You shouldn’t screw around
(forgive the pun) when you have a pain in that region. So I got up,
Googled it, found nothing but scary stories about testicular cancer and
painful hernias, and decided then I should go see a doctor. I told my
wife I had to go and I proceeded to walk over to the neighborhood
Emergency Room at 2:30 AM.

During triage I explained that the pain was around a 7 on a scale of 1
to 10, it was a dull intense pain, not sharp, and it was constant, not
coming in waves, centered around my testicle and my lower abdomen area.

After I was moved to a gurney, the doctor began black box
testing
on me. It’s not unlike debugging a bug in code for which you don’t have
any means to step through a debugger. He’d prod around narrowing down
the possible diagnoses. However, unlike debugging code, this process was
excruciatingly painful.

After manhandling my right nut for a while, the doctor diagnosed me
with Testicular
Torsion.
Wikipedia defines it thusly...

In testicular torsion the spermatic cord that provides the blood
supply to a testicle is twisted, cutting off the blood supply, often
causing orchalgia. Prolonged testicular torsion will result in the
death of the testicle and surrounding tissues.

I define it as ow! ow! that fucking hurts!

So the doctor leaves to order an ultrasound and returns not long after
to “try one more thing.” He then proceeds to grab the nut and twist it
around, asking me to let him know when the pain subsides.

Riiiiight.

A man with a latex glove is twisting my nut and asking me when it
doesn’t hurt? It *doesn’t hurt** when you’re not twisting it!*

Exactly how I wanted to spend my Monday morning.

Amazingly enough though, the pain subsided quickly after he stopped. I
didn’t realize at the time that he was twisting it back. I thought he
was just being sadistic.

The male nurse on duty quipped afterwards...

Probably the first time that someone twisting your testicle made you
feel better, eh?

No, twisting my testicle normally elicits feelings of euphoria and joy.
Of course it’s the first time! And by Zeus’s eye I hope it’s the last.

Afterwards I was pushed on a gurney into the ultrasound room by a big
burly Russian dude who proceeded to ultrasound my testicular nether
regions. At this point, there’s really no point in having any shame or
bashfulness. I just tried to make small talk as he showed me the screen
displaying blood flowing nicely.

As I was being discharged, the doctor told me it was a good thing I went
in. Left untreated for around six hours, I could have lost the testicle.
I later looked it up and this is what Wikipedia has to say on the
subject (emphasis mine).

Testicular torsion is a medical emergency that needs immediate
treatment. If treated within 6 hours, there is nearly a 100% chance
of saving the testicle. Within 12 hours this rate decreases to 70%,
within 24 hours is 20%, and after 24 hours the rate approaches 0.
(eMedicineHealth) Once the testicle is dead it must be removed to
prevent gangrenous infection.

Yeah, I’m going to be having nightmares too. In any case, it seems that
all is well. I still have a slight bit of discomfort not unlike the
feeling in your gut long after someone kicks you in the groin and I’ve
been walking around a bit gingerly, worried any sudden movement might
cause a relapse.

The moral of this story is when you have an intense pain in the balls,
don’t be a tough guy about it. Go to the emergency room and be safe
about it. No use trying to be stoic and losing a nut over it.

My next step now is to make an appointment with a Urologist so I can
have yet another doctor see me in all my glory and make sure it’s all
good.

To the doctor at the local neighborhood Emergency Room, I owe you a big
one. Because of him, the next time someone asks me, “Hey! How’s it
hanging” I can answer, “Pointed in the right direction.”